Lynn Lee on the penultimate episode of Mad Men...
As we get closer to the end of “Mad Men,” I’m growing increasingly confident it will stick the final landing. There’s been a new energy and sense of direction offsetting the sadness of saying goodbye, and the penultimate episode, while packed with even more emotional bombshells, continued to bring what felt like natural closures to several major character arcs. As with Joan from last week, even if we see Betty and Pete again, it seems unlikely the finale will contain any further major plot turns for them.
The biggest remaining question mark, not surprisingly, is still Don, the wandering soul of the show. But let me start with the other two, because they are two of my favorites, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that they’ve spent most of the series’ run competing for the title of most-reviled major character on “Mad Men.”
They’ve benefited from absolutely pitch-perfect performances by January Jones and Vincent Kartheiser, and if this episode was their swan song, boy, did they both go out on a hell of a high note—though, in Betty’s case, also a terribly sad one.
If you’d asked me how I thought Betty would end up, “dying of lung cancer” would not have been one of my guesses. I suppose it’s fitting for a show about the ’60s and advertising that the chickens of that pro-smoking culture would finally come home to roost. But the timing felt especially cruel, given that Betty only recently found a new groove and seemed happier and more comfortable with herself than we’ve ever seen her. Nonetheless, she took the news stoically, true to herself to the end.
Some might see Betty’s treatment of poor Henry and Sally as cold and unfeeling, but we should know by now that she reacts the way she does because that’s how she was trained to be since childhood, and she’s never quite been able to break free of that mold. Nowhere was this more painfully evident than her reaction to Sally’s surprise appearance. Unable to express her conflicting emotions, she brushes right past the tentatively smiling daughter who half-moves to hug her, breaking our collective heart. Fortunately, we get a small if equally heartbreaking measure of solace in their last conversation and the letter she leaves with Sally.
I always worried about you because you march to the beat of your own drum. But I now know that’s good. I know your life will be an adventure. I love you.”
Betty sees that her daughter, despite her own best efforts, is in no danger of falling into the same trap she did—and that’s what makes her farewell letter such a touching capstone to their often prickly and combative relationship. (Kudos to Kiernan Shipka, who made me sob right along with Sally, and who’s matured wonderfully as an actress over the course of the show.) Of course, Betty being Betty, she spends even more time detailing just how she wanted her corpse to look, right down to the dress and shade of lipstick. But in another sense, she’s simply embracing who she was for the better part of her life. If she spent too much of it looking her best rather than doing her best, she might as well look her damned best to the last.
On the flip side, Pete may finally be able to get the second chance that Betty was denied. I say “may” because I’m skeptical of any source of good fortune that comes from Duck Phillips, and also because it’s hard to imagine Pete being happy in Wichita. His vision of a fresh start felt like the Hail Mary pass of his life. Amazingly, it seems to have worked on Trudy, and I hope it works out for real. Pete’s worst faults have always stemmed from his frustrated need for love and recognition; the question is whether taking the Learjet offer and reuniting with his family will satisfy that need. Maybe it will, now that he understands the value of what he gave up to get where he is now. As his conversation with his brother reveals, Pete’s learned that “always looking for better, always looking for something else” will only leave you permanently dissatisfied, and, at worst, bereft of the love you once took for granted.
It’s a lesson his former role model is still in the process of learning. Don’s unplanned sojourn in an Oklahoma backwater town crystallizes everything he’s spent his entire life trying to escape. Shameful memories of the war, dragged up by the veterans at the American Legion. The small-town, small-minded greed and hypocrisy of an ostensibly pious community. The young hustler-in-training who for all the world looks like a young version of himself in his Dick Whitman days. Even the ghost of Coca-Cola comes to haunt him, in the form of a broken machine he’s asked to fix, as a reminder of the bait that almost trapped him for good.
You knew we’d catch up with you eventually.”
Don can unburden himself of some of the guilt he’s carried all his life, but never all, as evidenced in his half-confession to the vets and his attempt to discourage young Dick Whitman 2.0 from following in his footsteps. Being somebody else is “not what you think it is,” he says, and adds, in a peculiar phrase that conveys both self-advancement and self-imprisonment, “You cannot get off on that foot in this life.” (Jon Hamm is especially impressive in that scene, and not just because he’s literally towering over the kid.) Don’s whole life can be distilled in that one bleak warning. So it’s both ironic and appropriate that his next step is to leave one of the last vestiges of his life as the false Don Draper – the fancy car – with this callow reminder of his pre-Don Draper self. Post-Don Draper’s come full circle and looks lighter, even happier, than he has in a while. But he isn’t truly free of baggage, and I expect the finale to show he never will be.
Movie references:
-The young students at Betty's college refer to her as "Mrs Robinson," confusing the doctor who first admits her to diagnose the cause of her fall. The Graduate had been a sensation in movie theaters just a couple of years earlier than the episode.
-When Don is asking about local attractions he's told that the only movie theater nearby is a drive-in that he can’t access because he doesn’t have a car. No movies for you, Don, until you figure out your life instead of trying to run away from it!
-Pete’s prospective new employer, Learjet, was apparently known for its glamorous Hollywood clientele (Elizabeth Taylor and Danny Kaye get name-dropped). But Pete isn’t interested in Hollywood anymore; he’s set his sights on the “wholesome” appeal of Kansas. Of course what we’ve seen of its neighbor Oklahoma doesn’t seem particularly wholesome, but maybe for once Pete will be luckier.
-Don’s reading The Godfather, perhaps while pondering his own efforts to leave behind his criminal background, though the movie wouldn’t come out until 1972. The hotel “maid” also provides him James Michener’s Hawaii (echo of Don’s past?) and Michael Crichton’s sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain (hopefully not a hint of his future), both of which were also adapted into films released in 1966 and 1971, respectively.
-Don diving into a pool will always bring to my mind the surrealist John Cheever story “The Swimmer,” which was made into a 1968 film starring Burt Lancaster. In a nutshell, the main character starts out as a seemingly well-liked, well-off man in the prime of his life who “swims his way home” via his neighbor’s pools only to find himself old, cold, homeless, and alienated from everyone at the end. Here’s hoping Don’s fate is less grim.
The Final Promo